24 Hour Museum Renaissance Student Journalist Chris Breese was carted off to Lincoln to do his time...

Life on the inside of the Victorian penal system will be on show when part of Lincoln Castle’s historic prison is opened to the public for the first time in July.

The 24 Hour Museum was granted an exclusive look inside the foreboding gaol to see what visitors will experience a full 127 years after its original closure.

Lesley Dean, Keeper of Events and Marketing at the castle, told the 24 HM: “We’re hoping that this attraction will get a lot of visitors so we will be able to invest in the rest of the prison and the castle.”

The block about to be opened was originally used to hold women prisoners and was a very modern facility in its day, featuring running water and sanitation rarely seen in other prisons at the time.

All the cells have been whitewashed and restored to the appearance they would have had when the prison was in use, along with the matron’s quarters where the prisoners could be supervised with the comfort of a fire.

Opened in 1848 the wing initially operated under the ‘Pentonville’ system where inmates where kept in isolation. The scheme was dropped after just 18 months when prisoners showed signs of madness from the solitude.

Rising early to a breakfast of gruel, the population could expect a day of labour with a lunch of soup and yet more gruel for supper.

Five years or more could be expected for pilfering the most innocuous of items and the hangman’s noose would await those bold enough to steal so much as a sheep.

Poorer Victorians inevitably made up the prison’s population. Transfer records detail the incarceration of a George Parker, whose alias is given as ‘Doggy’ Parker.

A 32-year-old labourer and baker, the father of two is described as being able to read and write ‘imperfectly’. He was condemned to five years ‘penal servitude’ for stealing a French five Franc piece.

Close to the prison building and still within the castle walls is Lincoln Crown Court, still trying cases around 300 years after it was originally built. Those found guilty here can thankfully expect better treatment in today’s prisons than was meted out in the grim corridors of the building just a hundred yards away.

Visitors will have to wait until the castle prison opens on July 23 to see just how much progress has been made.

Chris Breese is the 24 Hour Museum Renaissance student journalist for the East Midlands region. Renaissance is the groundbreaking initiative to transform England's regional museums, led by MLA, the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council.